The invention concerns a method to assist the drive of at least one moving switch part of an electric compression switch with a quenching medium flow which is generated during the switching-off process by means of a compression device, as well as an electric compression switch, designed in accordance with this method, where the arc arising across the switch components is quenched by the flow of the quenching medium, and where the compression device consists primarily of a piston coacting with a quenching-medium compression chamber.
It is known to blast the arc arising within electric switches, especially by means of a gas flow, where the blast flow by a quenching medium is generated by means of a piston coacting with a quenching-medium compression chamber and driven with the aid of an external drive as shown for example by Swiss patent CH-PS 519, 238.
Switches of this type, when designed for breaking increasingly heavy currents, do require external drives of correspondingly greater motive forces.